The Wayside Pulpit No.77
Possession
In this paper we shall take
an extract from a most fascinating book, entitled "Visions of
Immortality", the incredible findings of a century of research on death,
by Ian Currie, Element, 1998. Large paperback @
(Beginning of quote) Dangers of
the ouija
In looking at published
accounts of possession cases, I have been struck again and again by how often
such cases result from experimentation with ouija boards and automatic writing.
The act of deliberately "opening" yourself to communication with the
dead, in innocence and without due regard for the danger involved, seems to
attract many of the sort of dead you would never want to meet. For dying
apparently does not change your basic character. If you are a vicious, cruel
person, consumed with hatred during life, so you will be in death.
Possession
can happen
I have used the recent
personal experiences of many different people to demonstrate that possession is
not a mere fantasy from the superstitious past. It can and does occur
today, just as it always has. And it is my opinion that the legacy of such experiences, accumulating over the
centuries, can go a long way toward explaining the extremely widespread human
fear of the dead. As the experiences in this chapter show, we have every reason
for fearing some of the dead.
Can we make any useful
generalizations about the basic dynamics of possession? An examination of a
large number of published cases suggests that we can.
In what
"condition" are the possessing dead?
Here we have to distinguish
between deliberate and inadvertent possession. Inadvertent or accidental
possession usually seems to involve actual ignorance of one’s own death,
and can be accompanied by varied states of consciousness. Such possessing
entities can be in an unconscious stupor, which may intermittently be inflicted
on the victim. Or, they may be conscious, with either no, or minimal, sensory input. Some such
complain of existing in "dense darkness" or in a "mist."
Still others have a full, normal sensory awareness of the physical world with
which they are completely familiar. Those who exist in mist or darkness
frequently state that they have been drawn to a "light." This
"light" seems most commonly to be the "aura" of a
psychically sensitive person, but it can also be the aura of someone not known to be psychic. As the light
seems to offer a refuge from darkness and permits visual perception, it may be
"entered," an act which can apparently trap the confused entity
within the aura. The possessing entity is now in a position to influence the
embodied person, who may or may not be aware of this influence. As the
"trapped" entity must now "go about" with the embodied
person, intense anger and frustration may be directed at this person, who is
seen as "imprisoning" the dead individual. The entrapment may proceed
from the aura to actual blending with the body of the living person. The
possessing entity may then regard the body as its own. In other cases, the
presence is aware that there is another unwelcome tenant—the original
owner—which it may try to drive out. All of this can be intensely distressing to the
embodied person.
Deliberate possession, on
the other hand, seems usually to be perpetrated by dead human beings who know
that they are dead. This knowledge, however, does not prevent them from
being "stuck" at the level of the physical world. All that they can
perceive is what we perceive from the vantage point of our own bodies, although
some can also see other entities in the same condition as themselves. Existence
in this state proves highly frustrating, as it is normally impossible for them to manipulate
the physical world in any way. As this state of impotence frequently seems to
be accompanied by normal physical desires for sex, food, and so on, it leads, logically enough, to
determined efforts to obtain control of a body in order to fulfil their needs.
In the most malevolent cases, there is a sadistic desire to torture, dominate,
and drive to insanity or suicide the originally embodied personality, using, if
necessary, a diabolical capacity for deception.
But why do some of the
dead end up like this?
Here we are on much less
certain ground, although interested investigators have offered some
generalizations. It is claimed that any intense personality trait or desire can
"hold" you in one of the states described above:
· ·
• obsessive hatred for persons or specific situations;
•
obsessive love for any person, object, way of life;
•
earthly desires: for food, sex, liquor, drugs, power, money, clothing,
life-styles, revenge, the physical or mental torturing of others, and so on;
•
any negative general personality trait such as greed, lust, selfishness,
religious fanaticism, exaggerated self-absorption, and so on;
•
ignorance of the fact of life after death, or fixed but incorrect ideas about
its nature.
It is also claimed that the
victims of possession may in a sense bring it on themselves by having personal
characteristics similar to those "holding" the dead; this
"attracts" compatible deceased persons and makes it easier for possession to occur.
A good many cases can be
cited in support of each of these generalizations. But we cannot say they are
the only causes, because such qualities would, in various combinations, apply
to virtually all dead and all living persons. And because other evidence proves
that all of the dead are not possessors, and all of the living not possessed,
we must simply confess our ignorance of the real causes of possession. Possibly
it is a question of the degree,
intensity, or nature of the commitment to these characteristics for both the
living and the dead victims of possession which causes it to occur." (End of quote)
.